Julia Modern is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology.
She received her PhD in 2021 from the University of Cambridge. Her doctoral research was focused on an organisation of disabled women traders based in a peri-urban market in western Uganda, with whom she has worked since 2013.
Research Interests
Julia's thesis considered how institutions and practices associated with the category ‘disabled’ shaped the conditions of possibility for different modes of community belonging for disabled people, including what kinds of social and economic claims different groups of disabled people made. She offered an account of how concepts of obligation based on interdependence can exist alongside and provide a counterpoint to models of disability justice based on individuals making claims on the state.
Julia is currently developing a postdoctoral project, which will look at the experiences of people who become disabled through accidents associated with plantation agriculture in western Uganda. This research will investigate the interaction between labour and disability legislation and organising, looking at the strategies that people follow to elicit justice, and how their choices interact with the ways that bodily-mental (in)capacity is conceptualised.
Teaching and Learning
Julia has taught on undergraduate economic and political anthropology courses, including a particular focus on political and economic anthropology of ‘environment’ and ‘nature.’ At SOAS, she has contributed guest lectures in the 'Body and Embodiment', 'SOAS Anthropology Now', and 'How to Change Things' modules.
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Reduce inequality within and among countries
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
